Did Marilyn Monroe Fake Her Own Death?

On the 5th August 1962 the world went into shock Marilyn Monroe, one of the most successful Hollywood stars of the period, was dead

The coroner’s report stated that overnight Monroe had swallowed 40 barbiturates, They caused her stomach lining to hemorrhage so intensely that she was dead before the ambulance arrived But in the intervening decades, suspicion has arisen that she didn’t die that night Instead, disturbed by the pressures of fame and unrequited love, she faked her own death to start a new life elsewhere Inconsistencies between the verdict and the crime scene created the initial suspicion Although the official verdict was suicide by barbiturate overdose, there was no trace of the pills in her bloodstream

Others, such as journalist Frank Wilkins, wondered how she swallowed such a quantity of pills when there was no liquid in her room There is also some evidence to suggest that an ambulance arrived at the scene and was turned away shortly before midnight – when Monroe was still alive If there was nothing to hide, this behaviour points to something more sinister at play The drivers that took Monroe to the mortuary, Allan Abbott and Ron Hast, later stated that the body they collected looked “completely unrecognisable”, with false teeth and false breasts, as well as prominent dark roots, and a bloated, swollen neck Some of the strongest evidence that the corpse may not have been hers comes from sightings of her in the last fifty-four years

Most recently, on June 28th 2009, at least 26 people claimed to have seen her on a Hawaii beach In an interview with herbalist and writer Derek Clontz, one witness, Jenny Kramer-Smith, described the sighting She said was wrinkled and a little hump-backed like any other little old lady What was left of her hair was cut very short and it was white and thin But Marilyn is Marilyn – there‘s no mistaking that smile, those lips, and that face

” Yet another witness – Sally Matin – described taking “a deep breath and calling out her name as loud as I could” Allegedly, Monroe was then escorted out by a man in a suit This is alarming because of how unusual it is to have mass sightings Writer Erik Romane has long been convinced that Monroe faked her own death, and has produced a dossier of “evidence” supporting his claim Romane argues that Monroe was so desperate to escape from difficult circumstances and harassment by the press, that faking her own death was the only way to get the clean break she craved

He says that the following circumstances deepened her feeling of entrapment It was well-known that Monroe found it difficult to deal with paparazzi stalking, and binged on alcohol and anti-anxiety drugs to deal with it She also had a string of relationships with high-profile figures that brought extra pressure on her life Journalist Anthony Scaduto claims that Monroe detailed her raunchy affairs in a diary He says she was threatening to reveal her “well-known secret” affairs with President John Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy

Scaduto says that when the brothers ended these affairs, Monroe could not accept it and would call the White House in the throes of depression Investigative reporters Jay Margolis and Richard Buskin claim the FBI and CIA were linked to the events that night It is possible that the agencies masterminded a faked death to stop Monroe from bringing the President into sordid disrepute; a disappearance along the lines of the Witness Protection Programme Erik Romane says another motive was revenge against her ex husband Joe DiMaggio Although they had divorced in 1952, they still occasionally slept together

On the morning of her death, Monroe received a call from DiMaggio insisting it was finally over Romane writes that she was so erratic before she died, this is certainly a plausible motive for disappearing: “Would she cut off her nose to spite her face? Would she throw away her career to make DiMaggio feel bad? I certainly wouldn’t put it past her“ But all this is simply proof of how tormented Monroe was in the lead up to her death The same arguments could be used to show that she committed suicide Given how famous Monroe was at the time, and how ubiquitous her image was, there have been remarkably few sightings of her since 1962

To secretly remove her from Los Angeles, hide her, and keep her identity secret for decades would have been a practically impossible feat And the stakes would have been extremely high Had she been discovered, the Kennedy brothers’ reputations would have been ruined Monroe had a history of harming herself Between 1944 and 1960, she attempted suicide four times

She had also abused amphetamines and barbiturates and suffered from depression, anxiety and insomnia for a number of years In 1961 she had even been hospitalised for depression Her pathological and medical history therefore show suicidal tendencies On the night of her death, other such as her psychiatrist Ralph Greenson, had reported her behaving erratically Her manner was so alarming that Ratpack member Peter Lawford alerted her housekeeper when he found Monroe dazed and confused over the phone

Deputy Coroner Lionel Grandison Jr responded to criticism of the verdict in his memoirs He explained that when a person takes a large quantity of pills over a few minutes, as Monroe appears to have done, there is no time for the drugs to contaminate the bloodstream before the victim is killed He also pointed out that the findings of the toxicology report exactly match the pills recovered from the scene The circumstances of Marilyn Monroe’s death are definitely suspicious Yet, much of the evidence for Monroe faking her own death is based on the difficulties she faced at the end of her life – not on “posthumous” proof

Many questions hover over the true events of that night Monroe was hell bent on self-destruction and desperate to escape her circumstances But her method of execution: whether by suicide, or faking her death, we may never know